4th of July

Awwwe...4th of July. What is that you say? "Who cares about 4th of July, it was over a month ago" Well, excuse me, Pretend Antagonist, but  if you had taken 179 pictures that day, you too would feel so inclined to blog about it. Annnnyways, in the OC, people camp out all day at the beach and watch fireworks over the ocean at night. Which sounds quite magjestic but, being a family that rarely plans ahead and having a toddler who would run us into the ground if we stayed in one place that long, lead us to come up with the days activities off hand. So, we rolled out of bed and decided to head down to the beach for just a bit. The place was packed and there was no parking. Refusing to give up, we parked in a one hour parking booth and decided to time our visit down to the minute. We managed to take 40 pictures in that hour; not including the walk over (substract 15 minutes). Sooo, that is .89 pictures a minute. You should be impressed now... Here are the goods:

Jake and I chasing his rubber ball into the ocean

He loves to play in water - so happy!

After having just jumped into a wave - soaked! He has no fear. I make up for his lack of fear by hovering nearby, anxiously.

Newport beach and pier.

Playing in the sand with Dad. Please note Sean's awkward leg sitting situation. This comes from an inability to cross his legs, ever. Fortunately, this disability has not stopped him from being an awesome Dad.

My boys playing together.

It looks like torture, but apparently he loves it!

We raced back to car and stopped over at Balboa Island to get some ice cream.

Yesss! It's a frozen Banana stand! Much like the one in Arrested Development.

I like ice cream.

We headed home and put Jakob down for his nap. What came next was an improptu BBQ by the grill at our apartment. This is a shot of the palm trees above the grills.

One problem with little foresight is hot dog buns. Apparently, people buy them in advance and then you have to use hamburger buns when the grocery store sells out. Pictured above: Half a dog in a hamburger bun.

Jake spent most of the picnic/BBQ trying to get over to the play structure. When he finally got there THIS is what he does first - smash his face through the tiny hole. I am so proud.

Once it got dark we headed down to Tustin High School for the fire works. In years past, I had been too paranoid to let my baby get off schedule and stay up late for the show but this year I have come to terms with it. The fact being that a couple of times a year my child will stay up late and be crabby the next day.

Jake stayed up 2 hours past his bed time and was getting pretty unhappy close to the show. So, Sean bought him a glow stick to get him happy. He loved it! As you can see he was waving it around like crazy.

Sean trying to duck for cover from getting smacked in the face with a glow stick.

More fun with the glow stick.

Here is Jake desperate to escape my arms so he can go over and check out what every single person is doing. He managed several times and would cruise around the blankets smiling at people and trying to steal their fried chicken. Finally the Fireworks started. Thank goodness!! The show was nice and we raced home after to get Jakob to bed. A very successful 4th!

Here is a picture of Jakob the next day. Which I off course snapped with my phone camera and sent out to my entire family, naturally. Oh so worth it.